NetEase - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day and welcome to the NetEase 2023 Q4 and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Brandi Piacente, President of Piacente Financial Communications. Please go ahead.

Brandi Piacente (President)

Thank you, Operator. Please note the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of the company and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor for liability as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and this discussion. A general discussion of the risk factors that could affect NetEase's business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F and in announcements and filings on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The company does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required by law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the 2023 Q4 and full year earnings news release issued earlier today. Please note that certain financial information regarding Cloud Music we will be discussing on this call has been prepared in accordance with IFRS.

For additional information, including a definition of non-IFRS measures and a reconciliation of IFRS to non-IFRS financial results, please refer to Cloud Music's annual results announcement for 2023. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, an investor presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the NetEase corporate website at ir.netease.com.

Joining us today on the call from NetEase's senior management are Mr. William Ding, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Bill Pang, Vice President of Corporate Development. I will now turn the call over to Bill, who will read the prepared remarks on William's behalf.

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Thank you, Brandi, and thank you, everyone, for participating in today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that all percentages we're talking about here today are RMB. 2023 marked another year of innovation for NetEase. We drove momentum across our businesses, expanding our top and bottom lines year-over-year for both 2023 and the Q4. Continuous cross-category innovation at NetEase Games is actively expanding and diversifying our ever-growing game portfolio. On top of our inherent strengths in MMO and Chinese culture-derived titles, in 2023, we have landmark success and breakthroughs in diversified honors. This powerful combination is driving our game business with healthy Q4 performance from both our new and time-honored titles.

Looking first at some of our MMO performance for the period, we remain highly committed to supporting and growing the robust appeal of our esteemed legacy franchises, such as Fantasy Westward Journey and Westward Journey Online, with fresh content and exciting in-game events like our annual celebration for Fantasy Westward Journey. In the Q4, we held a series of carnival-themed events that reinvigorated players, reaffirming the importance of Fantasy Westward Journey's IP and its stature as one of the most influential MMORPGs in China.

The longevity of these flagship titles also underscores our commitment and ability to elevate traditional game standards through ongoing in-game innovation. Adding to our conventional MMO titles, our new MMOs are pushing the boundary of what MMOs can be. The revolutionary advancements we have introduced with games like Justice are evolving the genre as a whole and continue to gain player momentum.

In the Q4, the Justice Mobile franchise reached a new milestone of 100 million active users, encompassing a broad and diverse user base. In our experience, these are telltale signs of games' potential for robust operating longevity. The innovative renovation seasonal mechanism, which both introduced new pursuits and reduced entry barriers, continues to captivate and inspire current users and new users alike. These are bolstered by rich challenges and achievements where everyone can develop individual interests and be rewarded equally, whether playing in PvP instances, combat-focused PvP sessions, or casual gameplay modes. The steps we're taking to strengthen our brand and engage players are also bearing fruits. By integrating players' other interests with our games and giving them more in-game autonomy and choices, we create deeper connections between our games and player communities.

For example, in the Q4, players got to weigh in on the selection of collaboration partners for Justice franchise. In response to players' popular choices, we established a collaboration with the Chinese fan sensation Phoenix Legend, providing players the voice in shaping their gaming experience as proved highly engaging with our community. The event was a huge success, led by players' word-of-mouth marketing with friend recommendations driving the bulk of newcomers to the game. In addition to our MMOs, we made headway across a diverse side of genres in 2023, broadening our reach across more casual game players and entering new genres such as sports and simulation games. These not only enrich our broader NetEase community but also highlight our ability to bring highly successful games to players in more diverse game categories.

Touching on a few of the successes in genres that are new to us, Dunk City Dynasty has emerged as a groundbreaking basketball game. Here, we have successfully attracted a large user base to a genre that was previously considered relatively small in China. To build on the game's initial success, we are providing more for our players, adding further diversified gameplay and exciting players to the team rosters. We have been expanding the player lineup since the Q4, introducing MVP stars like James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Joel Embiid, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon, as well as CBA legends including Yi Jianlian and Guo Ailun. Beyond the game itself, we are committed to spread basketball game culture.

To foster broader basketball game community growth, we are launching a foundation valued at more than CNY 10 million this year to support the sports development, including sponsoring university basketball games and facilitating event promotions. We expect these initiatives to extend the reach of our game and the sport itself across a broader audience. Racing Master is another new hit to us, offering top-tier content for racing fans. During the Q4, we enriched the player experience with an expanded selection of international professional race tracks and aspirational supercars, catering to our robust demand from our player community. Following its official launch in China in June, Racing Master is now available in Hong Kong, Macau, and most recently Taiwan, where it topped the local iOS download and crossing chart in the first week of its launch.

As we expand our reach across a growing range of genres, we are also capturing the attention of more female players with innovative games like Shijie Zhiwai. With this ACG-style romance game, we have once again defied conventions, introducing an infinite scroll backdrop and bringing players more storytelling and gameplay innovation. We released the Shijie Zhiwai in January this year, and the players continue to embrace it, having topped China's iOS download gaming chart during its first week on the market. For our blockbuster Eggy Party, we continue to cultivate our UGC ecosystem.

Building on players' enduring enthusiasm, in December, we introduced a new feature, Eggy Code, unleashing even more content creation potential by offering an engaging and easy coding tool for our players. Coding lines can be now translated into user-friendly toy blocks to control events, actions, and conditions more readily, allowing creators to further unleash their creativity.

This newest innovation pushes prior game coding limits, greatly increasing creation flexibility for the game's more than 26 million creators. To further expand our rich catalog of diverse games, we have a number of new titles under development. Today, I would like to mention a couple of our upcoming games that will be rolling out this year. First is Condor Heroes. Based on one of China's most popular martial arts novels, Condor Heroes is an open-world RPG that will be launching across PC, mobile, and cloud gaming platforms. We have established a highly immersive martial arts world for the game, featuring open explorations and rich storytelling. All players will embark on their journey within a single server that can accommodate over 10 million players' simultaneous online interaction.

Multiple rounds of tests have shown an excellent performance so far, and we are on course for Condor Heroes's soft launch on March 28th this year. Next comes Where Winds Meet, which is designed to bring players an open-world gaming experience comparable to console gameplay. The game features realistic martial arts combat experience and an inclusive art style with a unique historical backdrop. We successfully concluded testing on the PC side in December, and we are currently gearing up for the game's launch later this year. Additionally, we are thrilled to announce that we have received license approval for Naraka: Bladepoint on mobile earlier this week. We are excited to extend the immersive combat experience enjoyed by players on PC and console platforms to mobile realms.

On the global stage, we continue to add studios around the world that cement our ability to draw on local talent and extend our international appeal. We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to our game studio portfolio: Worlds Untold in Vancouver, Canada, and our newest U.S. addition, BulletFarm, headquartered in Los Angeles. Worlds Untold is led by industry veteran Mac Walters, who has over two decades of experience in game and writing, well known for his contribution in the acclaimed Mass Effect series. We welcome Mac and his team, who will be dedicated in creating new IP with their debut product already underway. The remote first studio, BulletFarm, is led by David Vonderhaar and his team of industry veterans. David is an award-winning and experienced game developer best known for leadership on the Call of Duty franchise.

They are currently working on an ambitious new AAA game set in the original universe with an emphasis on collaborative gameplay. We're looking forward to his contribution in creating more highly anticipated titles for our portfolio. As we have always said, people are most valuable, and talent development is one of our top priorities. The tailored course we offer our employees across various career development stages and professions ensures that NetEase culture fosters sustainable talent incubation. I'm pleased to announce that in the Q1 of 2024, we were the sole Chinese internet company to be awarded the ATD Excellence in Practice Award. This prestigious award and acknowledgment from the global talent development industry is an honor that further strengthens our commitment to cultivating the newest wave of internet talent. Alongside with our business momentum, we have assumed increasing social responsibility.

This comes with a resolve to protect minors in our internet endeavors. In addition to our existing anti-addiction system, we have started integrating several functions, including a minor mode across our China-based game lineup to protect minors, and will continue to steer the gaming ecosystem towards a healthier trajectory with our innovative products and technology. Now let's move to Youdao. In the Q4, Youdao continued to propel technological innovation and product development, further improving profitability and cash flow. In our learning services, we have consistently raised the quality of our unique courses. Digital content services kept a healthy growth momentum in the Q4. In addition, the retention rates were approximately 70% in the Q4 for both advanced-level programming courses and Go courses. In 2023, 340 students from our programming courses received awards in the CSP programming competition held in China.

Notably, 106 students won first prize, comprising over 20% of all the award recipients. We believe that our students' success highlights the high standard and effectiveness of our courses. Additionally, the utilization of our cutting-edge AI technology and the enhancement of our data infrastructure drove Youdao's online marketing services revenue to reach a record-breaking CNY 474.1 million in the Q4. These AI-driven advancements have empowered us to enhance our real-time API technology capabilities, diversifying our time base, and broaden the scope of our applications. Our smart devices saw an expected year-on-year decline in the net revenue in the Q4. This was due to optimization initiatives for our strategic channel structures, as mentioned last quarter. Steps we have taken are directed at reducing low ROI sales channels, which in turn affected channel inventory in the short term but are expected to serve our long-term ROI-driven objectives.

Encouragingly, we have observed signals indicating a recovery, including a return to healthy development in the Q4 compared to the previous quarter. The sales channels optimization has been completed. Our commitment to technological innovation remains central to Youdao's business. We have consistently advanced our proprietary LLM and accelerated the development of large language model applications since the Q4. Expanding our capabilities in virtual human tutoring, we upgraded the digital human language coach, HiEcho, in the Q4, further enhancing its conversational capabilities. To augment students' learning experiences, we introduced the AI tutor into our recently launched Youdao Smart Learning Pad X20. The AI tutor adeptly responds to students' inquiries on Pad, simulating the interaction of a human tutor. Furthermore, we are observing the tangible impact of AI technology in truly improving performance.

Our existing LLM features, particularly AIBox, continue to receive user acclaim, contributing to more than 100% year-on-year growth in the translation subscription fees for three consecutive quarters. Turning to NetEase Cloud Music, in the Q4 of 2023, Cloud Music continued to navigate quality development across our music-centric ecosystem while further extending robust monetization momentum in the core online music business and improving overall profitability. The revenue from subscription-based membership in the Q4 continued a solid upward trend.

This growth was primarily driven by an increase in the number of subscribers, along with a moderate improvement in our pool as a result of our diligence in strengthening our music-centric monetization capabilities. With the introduction of new premium offerings, including expansive content and innovative features, as well as broadening membership privileges and joining programs with external partners, we notably grew our subscriber base in the Q4.

Moreover, we considerably improved our profitability for Cloud Music throughout 2023, achieving full-year positive adjusted net profit under IFRS for the first time. We remain committed to fostering strong partnerships with music copyright holders and are actively working towards deepening this collaboration to expand our catalog of music label content, promote advantageous music genres, and increase album sales in collaboration with the top artists. In particular, music genres such as hip-hop and Chinese folk have been a surge in the popularity on our platform, and we continue to cultivate content in these advantageous genres. 2023 also marked our debut of physical album market with our first co-published physical album, Hua Chenyu's new album, Xi Wang Hope, followed by the successful sales of Zhang Jie's physical album, Wai Nan Jie 1982, in the Q4.

We continuously enhance our support system for independent artists by actively investing in initiatives that foster musicians, improving music creation tools, and expanding online and offline music exposure. We aim to help independent artists increase their influence and commercial income, ultimately strengthening the original music ecosystem on our platform. As of December 2023, our platform had over 684,000 registered independent artists who contributed around 3.1 million music tracks to our library. Drawing on our expertise in music, a wide and varied user base, and in-depth user insights, our in-house studios continue to enrich our content matrix, offering high-quality and unique music content. Our studios are gaining increasing ground in advantageous music genres.

For instance, we produced a number of popular tracks in the Q4, including Sunshine Boys and Sunshine Girls 2023, Yang Guang Nan Hai Yang Guang Nü Hai 2023, and Sheng Sheng, further solidifying our competitiveness in the hip-hop genre. Turning to our private label consumer brand, in 2023, Yanxuan continued to strengthen its brand presence with highly popular products in focus categories.

With increasing consumer recognition of domestic-made products in China, Yanxuan has established a solid brand awareness across pet supplies and household cleaning, as well as office supplies and food, among others. Sales growth remained steady in 2023 with double-digit increase in specific e-commerce channels year over year. Simultaneously, we are continuously optimizing Yanxuan's supply chain to improve cost efficiency by integrating automated systems. In 2024, we will continue to provide Yanxuan customers with consistent, high-quality original products.

Across our business lines, the cornerstone of our competitive edge is our innovation. With our robust R&D capability, we have consistently produced unique products that drive our company and industries we serve forward. In 2024, we remain committed to these principles, and we will bring more high-quality products to the market. By crafting outstanding products, we can simultaneously create value for both our user community and our stakeholders. This concludes William's comments. I will now provide a brief review of our 2023 annual result with focus on the Q4. Given the limited time on today's call, I'll be presenting some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details. Our total net revenue for 2023 was RMB 103.5 billion or $14.6 billion, representing a 7% increase year-over-year.

For the Q4, total revenue was RMB 27.1 billion or $3.8 billion, up 7% year-over-year. For 2023, our net revenue from games and related VAS was RMB 81.6 billion, up 9% from 2022. Revenue accelerated even faster in Q4 to RMB 20.9 billion, up 10% year-over-year. The additional growth was primarily due to increased revenue contribution from launch of new games such as Justice Mobile and sustainable developed titles like Eggy Party.

Revenues from mobile games continue to make up the lion's share of our game business, accounting for 77% of our total net revenue from online game operations in the Q4 and 75% for the year. Youdao's net revenue for 2023 reached RMB 5.4 billion and was up 2% year-over-year in the Q4, reaching RMB 1.5 billion, primarily due to increased revenue contribution from Youdao's online marketing services.

NetEase Cloud Music net revenue was CNY 7.9 billion for the full year and CNY 2 billion in the Q4, a 13% and 16% decline, respectively, compared to the same period last year. As we have previously discussed, the decline reflects lower revenue from social entertainment services as we adjust our focus to improve profitability in a sustainable manner. Net revenue for innovative business and others was CNY 8.6 billion for the year, up 9% year-over-year. In Q4, total revenue was CNY 2.8 billion, up 12.9% year-over-year, mainly due to increased revenue contribution from Yanxuan and some of our innovative business. The total gross profit margin was 62% in the Q4, compared with 52.2% for the same period in 2022.

Looking at our Q4 margin in more detail, gross profit margin was 69.5% for our games and related VAS, compared with 59.1% in the same period last year. The increase was primarily attributed to a higher proportion of net revenues contributed by NetEase self-developed games. Our gross profit margin for Youdao was 49.9%, compared with 53.3% in the same period of last year. The decrease was mainly due to reduced revenue contribution from smart devices, which was partially offset by increased revenue contribution from online marketing services, which carried relatively lower margins. Gross profit for Cloud Music improved in the Q4, reaching 30.3% versus 17.8% in the same period a year ago. The margin improvement primarily resulted from increased revenue scale from membership subscriptions and continued improvement to our cost management measures.

For our innovative business and others, gross profit margin was 34.4%, compared with 31.5% in the Q4 of 2022. The increase was primarily the result of margin improvement in Yanxuan and advertising services. Total operating expenses for the Q4 was RMB 10 billion, 37% of total net revenue. Taking a closer look at our cost composition, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total revenue were 15.6%, compared with 13.5% for the same period last year, mainly due to increased spending on gaming promotions this quarter.

On a full-year basis, selling and marketing expenses accounted for 13.5% of net revenue, which remained relatively stable compared with 2022 when it was 13.9%. Our R&D expenses as a percentage of total net revenue also remained stable year-over-year at 16.5% in the Q4, compared with 16.1% for the same period last year.

On a full-year basis, R&D expenses accounted for 15.9% of net revenue, which remained relatively stable compared to 2022 when it was 15.6%. We remain committed to investing in content creation and product development. We are also seeing leverage in our R&D investments longer term. Our other income was CNY 876 million for the Q4, compared with CNY 1.5 billion last quarter. The decrease was mainly due to exchange rates of U.S. dollars against RMB fluctuating over the period, and mark-to-market value of certain publicly traded securities in our investment portfolio witnessed depreciation during the Q4.

As per applicable accounting standards, we are required to reflect these fair value changes. The effective tax rate was 13.8% for the full year and the Q4. As a reminder, the effective tax rate is presented on an accrual basis, depending on applicable policies and our operations.

Our non-GAAP net income from continuing operations attributable to shareholders for the Q4 totaled CNY 7.4 billion or $1 billion, up 53% year-over-year. Non-GAAP basic earnings per ADS from continuing operations for the quarter was $1.62 or $0.32 per share. Additionally, our cash position remains strong. As of year-end, our net cash position was about CNY 110.9 billion, compared with CNY 95.6 billion at the end of 2022. In accordance with our dividend policy, we are pleased to report that our board of directors has approved a dividend of $0.21597 per share or $1.07985 per ADS.

Lastly, under our current $5 billion share repurchase program starting in mid-January last year, we have repurchased approximately 7.2 million ADSs as of December 31, 2023, for a total cost of approximately $644 million. Thank you for your attention. We would now like to open the call to your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. Please limit your questions to one at a time. If you wish to have follow-up questions, please rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from Felix Liu with UBS.

Felix Liu (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] Let me translate myself. Thank you, management, for taking my question, and congratulations on the buyout for the mobile version of Naraka: Bladepoint. My question is on the game. Could management share a bit more color on the R&D progress of the game? How would the mobile version differ from PC version, and what is your expected launch time for this game? Thank you very much.

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Felix Liu (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] That's great. Thank you.

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Yeah. I will do the translation. Yeah. For the mobile version of Naraka, we did a test. Everything is on track. We did a test in Chengdu back in December, and the result was fairly good. Regarding your question on the experience between mobile and PC, what William said is that during the past 2.5 years operating on PC, we have accumulated a ton of experiences, and we're doing all the needed modifications, everything optimization for the mobile version. Regarding the going live date, everything is on track, and now our best estimate is somewhere Q2.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Alex Poon with Morgan Stanley.

Alex Poon (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] Congratulations, management, for very strong results and game pipeline. My first question is regarding the overseas expansion of Eggy Party. We have launched in many countries already last year. What's our latest thought for the game in 2024? My second question is related to the progress of Project Mugen. Thank you very much.

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

[Foreign language]

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Okay. I will do the translation. First of all, as everybody knows, Eggy Party is a huge success in China, and we have accumulated tons of experience. Regarding overseas market, we are in the exploration period now, and we're doing that step by step, validating a lot of concept and thoughts to try different things out. The term we want you to get is that please stay tuned. We are going to get there for the overseas market of Eggy Party.

Regarding the status of Project Mugen, it's under normal game development now, and of course, it's also in the process of applying for the publishing numbers as well. The product has very specific, very clear positioning and development targets, and we hope in the area of ACG open world game, we can make the game financially enough to have its own foot on the market. Thank you. Next question.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Lei Zhang with Bank of America Securities.

Lei Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] Thanks, management, for taking my question. My question is regarding the overseas business, and can you give us some updates on the overseas game plan? And do we have any plan to expand or acquire more overseas studios? Thanks.

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Yeah. So now we have studios in the United States, Japan, U.K., and other countries. This is quite normal. When we are going global, we have set up our studios around the globe. That's quite normal, and it's going to be a new norm for us in the future. Thank you. Next question.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Yang Bai with CICC.

Yang Bai (Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] I will translate by myself. For Eggy Party and the party game, how do we think the future of UGC in game content creation? How is the user structure now compared to January 2023, and how to view the current competition in party game? And second line is, after so many successful domestic products, can we find some synergy between domestic and overseas business? Thank you.

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Okay. Thank you, William. Yeah. I will do the translation. Regarding our understanding of the UGC type of game, first, we would like to say doing UGC game is not the easy job. Looking globally, not many companies successfully did that. And for NetEase, we have our strengths, our unique experience and strengths, but all what we're doing is keep exploring. What we can do is keep a humble and creative attitude and keep exploring the new ways of being creative in the game design.

And regarding your next question on the synergy between domestic success and going overseas, the fun part of gameplay are the same, regardless where the game sits, where the player sits. So what we can do is leverage what we learn on the fun part, how to do a fun game, how to do gameplay design, and apply that for global products. Yeah. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Zhaoxuan Yang with Nomura.

Jialong Shi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] Thanks, management, for taking my question. I have a question about Eggy Party. We noted that since the end of last year, many offline promotional activities have been held for your game Eggy Party. Just wonder, what is the trend for your marketing expense this year, whether or not this promotional expense for Eggy Party was a driver for an acceleration in your marketing expense last Q4? Thank you.

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Thank you, William. Yeah. I will do the translation. Zhaoxuan, you're right. In Q4, if you look at our marketing spending, of course, as you can mention, there's some factor of competition that we have to deal with in the market. But in the meantime, you look at the recent performance, our performance during the Chinese year 2024, Eggy Party achieved 40 million DAU achievement, which shows that the marketing initiative we spent on is quite effective. The result is quite good and quite effective. Looking forward, we don't see a big increase on the marketing spending, and we will keep exploring the most effective ROI on the marketing spending as well as be more rigid on where to spend. And the marketing spending increase shouldn't be a concern.

William also talked about some greater macro backdrops that, as you can see, as the quality of games in general increases year-over-year, it's more and more challenging for other companies to compete in the market. For NetEase, because we have long-time accumulation in game development, everything, and we also invest bigly into our new project. So to some extent, year 2024 is actually a year of harvest to us. We are going to unleash the accumulation experience we accumulated over the past 20 years, and you will see more and more results of new games coming out. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Lincoln Kong with Goldman Sachs.

Lincoln Kong (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] So I translate myself. So my first question is about Where Winds Meet. So what's our target launch timeline for this game? It will be a cross-platform global launch for this time. And it seems during the testing, it requires quite high equipment on the PC end. So would that affect the mobile end in terms of the gameplay and the performance? How would that fit in both PC and mobile? And the second question is around the overall market. We do see some of the uncertainty around the macroeconomy and consumption going forward into 2024. So in those longer-term legacy games like Westward Journey, Fantasy Westward Journey, do we see any of the change in terms of the user spending behavior or paying willingness on those games? What's our outlook for this year's gaming industry?

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Yeah. I will do the translation. First of all, regarding your question to Where Winds Meet, Where Winds Meet, as we explained, is a game we spent three years developing. It's a very high-quality martial arts-based open-world RPG game. Regarding specifically the graphics question, that's something you don't need to worry and players don't need to worry either. Our engine has the capability to adapt on different hardware platforms to push the limit of that specific hardware, but also make sure it's runnable on different platforms. So that's been taken care of by our in-house game engine, everything. In the meantime, for the game itself, it's indeed a high-graphics game on advanced hardware platforms.

Also, from our experience, we saw people like the Wuxia culture like to play the game, and we hope this game could be a vehicle that we could promote the Wuxia culture to the world as well. To your second question regarding the macroeconomy uncertainties, how will that impact the game performance? From our observation, actually, gamers, they spend pretty prudently how much they spend in different games to get the fun they are pursuing.

From our experience, it's not very related to macroeconomy conditions. It's actually more related to the quality of the game itself. Now, as we said, the gamers, not only in China, but globally, become more and more picky regarding the quality, which pushes all the developers, us included, to spend more and more effort to making higher-quality content. Yeah. That's kind of the game industry macro we're in. Thank you. Next question, please. I think we have time for one last question. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your last question comes from Ritchie Sun with HSBC.

Ritchie Sun (Equity Research Analyst)

[Foreign language] So I will translate this question myself. So Condor Heroes will be launched in March, and Where Winds Meet can be launched in the H1. So in terms of the user demographics, how big is the overlapping between these games and now existing games? And how would NetEase coordinate the promotion and launch schedule to maximize the hit rates, and when will Where Winds Meet be launched? Thank you.

Speaker 10

[Foreign language]

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take a translate. Yeah. So regarding your question on the two different, both martial art-based games, these two games have totally different IP attributes. One is very beloved by Jin Yong fans. The other one is more like an Asian reality kind of setup. And both games are developed by different teams with different art style, different system setup. We don't see that the game is going to have a lot of collaboration with other games. And actually, our view is the market is actually looking for high-quality Wuxia open-world games. And by offering two high-quality Wuxia games in the market with different positioning, we hope we can push the market further. And on the go-live date, everything has been prepared. Everything is on track. And yeah, everything is on track. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

That concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brandi Piacente for any additional or closing comments.

Brandi Piacente (President)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us and have a great day.

Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.